My third suggestion for summer reading in Jamake Highwater’s Dance: Rituals of Experience.
Originally published in 1978, this dance history treatise remains relevant today for its juxtaposing of indigenous dance practices (notably Native American) with Western European dance.
Ritual serves as the pivot point for Highwater’s discussion. The book begins by positioning dance as “a separate reality.” Subsequent chapters address Experience as Ritual, History as Ritual, and Ritual as Art. Final chapters focus on dance as contemporary rites, drawing on examples from ballet, modern and post-modern dance, and opera. In the conclusion, he turns his critical eye on the future of dance.
The book provides interesting points of departure for thinking about modernism and spirituality, themes touched on in the earlier books mentioned and also in the aspects of Rudolf Laban’s work.